On a good day, it takes Nadine Steaman 30 minutes and two bus rides to get to work. But if the weather is poor or if traffic is backed up, her commute from Meadowvale Rd. and Sheppard Ave. E. to her office near Scarborough Town Centre can double, and by the time she arrives she’s so frazzled she just wants to turn around and go home.“I loathe the bus,” said Steaman, a 47-year-old community health worker. Like many residents in the GTHA, she’s desperate for her commute to get better, and she’s tired of politicians making lofty plans that never pan out.“They dangle this promise of better solutions but it just never happens … People want to see change,” she said.The four major parties in the June 7 provincial election are all making big promises to help people like Steaman who rely on public transit.Read more:Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals struggle to stay airborneOpinion | Editorial: Doug Ford’s PCs would put environmental gains at riskIn provincial election, battle lines drawn over minimum wage and good jobsThe NDP, Progressive Conservatives and Liberals have all pledged to move forward with Toronto’s two most high-profile subway projects: the Relief Line, which would take pressure off the overcrowded Line 1 (Yonge-University-Spadina) by linking the eastern arm of Line 2 (Bloor-Danforth) to downtown, costing an estimated $6.8 billion; and the controversial extension of Line 2 to the Scarborough Town Centre.Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor at the University of Toronto who studies transportation policy, said the prominent commitments to a Relief Line indicate provincial leaders are finally paying attention to evidence Toronto’s subway network is overburdened. “Probably in the last number of years the city has just started to feel way busier, and the transit system is really bursting at the seams,” he said. But on the other hand, he suggested the leadi ...
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